The beauty of animation is that is a medium where anything can happen. Anything, that is, so long as all the creative and business impulses that make a project happen align in the proper way. Sadly, that translates to “anything can happen, but it often doesn’t.”

Take Redux Riding Hood, a short produced by Disney’s television division in 1997. Steve Moore was offered the chance to create an animated short with no limitations, and he went nuts with it. The film turned out well, and scored an Oscar nomination, but then Disney put it on the shelf in 1998, and it has remained there ever since. Now the film is online, and it is very much worth a look.

Moore used a script by Dan O’Shannon (Modern Family) that told how the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood spent years plagued by self-doubt after he failed to eat Red. The resulting short is truly bizarre: a little bit Disney, a little bit Terry Gilliam, and a little sci-fi. (A time machine is involved) If you think there’s a bit of Seinfeld spirit, that’s because Michael Richards voices the wolf; other characters are voiced by Mia Farrow, June Foray, and Adam West, with Garrison Keillor narrating. Oh, and the woodsman hero who saves the girl, the one who seems like a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fabio? Well, he’s actually voiced by Fabio. Finally, for those who’ve seen and loved TimeCrimes, this will have a great extra level of appeal.